Fires are built in a variety of contexts including, for example, indoors in fireplaces and outdoors in fire pits or on the ground. Among other things, fires can be used to improve the atmosphere of a room, create warmth and light, prepare food, and offer an enjoyable campfire experience.
Conventionally, fires start with an initial ignition and build in strength over time.
When building a fire from scratch, an ignition source such as a match or lighter is typically used to light tinder which may include small, dry items (such as, for example, leaves, lint, twigs, paper, and so forth) that are highly flammable. With the tinder lit by the ignition source, kindling is added to the fire followed by logs or other bulky wood fuel sources. This process of building a fire from natural materials is time-consuming and requires the builder of the fire to have various sized items on hand.
To make fires easier to build, various products have been brought to the market to provide simple solutions for consumers that are interested in building fires.
One such solution is synthetic logs (e.g., pressed sawdust and wax logs). These synthetic logs can be housed in a flammable wrapper and can burn for several hours once lit. However, synthetic logs are vastly more expensive than their natural log counterparts and burn in such a way that it is apparent that they not natural wood.
There are also smaller firestarter blocks that can be made from similar materials. However, such traditional firestarters provide a relatively localized source of flame. When attempting to light natural cord wood, as is now widely available in bundles at many retail stores and gas stations, the use of such firestarter blocks usually does not robustly ignite the logs and requires a significant amount of moving the wood while attempting to start the fire.
Hence, a need exists for improved firestarters that light natural cord wood logs.